I have some recent experience with this... Last November, I made a long, and moderately arduous, trip to a semi-rural part of England and needed to work there. I brought: 1. My Compaq Laptop. 2. My North Face Recon II backpack. 3. My iPaq Pocket PC with WiFi and a 4GB SD card. 4. My Bose QuietComfort 2 Headphones. 5. A D-link DWL-g730ap pocket router. 6. I borrowed a digital camera overseas. 7. I borrowed a mobile phone overseas. This all worked out pretty well. Here's what I did... Let's start with the Pocket PC, which on my trip, along with the Bose headphones were my best friends (I'll get to the laptop and backpack later). THE POCKET PC I loaded up my favorite MP3 audio on my pocket PC (leave your iPod at home - I did and was not disappointed). I also loaded it up with maps and transport schedules (in Acrobat format) for the areas I was visting. Additionally, I loaded up a couple of eBooks that I thought I might want to read along the way (and did). At home I had a computer running myTunes RSS. If I wanted anything else from my iTunes audio library, I could either download it, or stream it, either to my Pocket PC, or my laptop (admittedly this was rare). I left my DVR running on a Slingbox and could access my video remotely too (laptop or Pocket PC). HEADPHONES My Bose QC II headphones may be expensive and a little bulky, but they are light, unbelievably comfortable and worth every penny. I used these on just about every form of public transport on my trip, and despite their bulk and price, I was really glad I brought them. There may be other headphones out there that are smaller (earbuds), or cheaper (most headphones), or perhaps those that have better sound quality or better sound cancellation, but they are pretty good at sound cancellation, and are so incredibly comfortable that you can sleep with them on almost any position. And the single AAA battery that drives them almost lasts forever. THE D-LINK POCKET ROUTER This is a really versatile little devil and it's very very light. It has three modes; wireless router, wireless access point, and wireless client. I used it as a wireless router when I got to my destination. It can be powered by a wall outlet or USB. DIGITAL CAMERA I borrowed a digital camera overseas, and was so impressed with it, that I have since purchased the very same camera I borrowed. This camera (a Konica Minolta Dimage G600) was smaller, lighter, and produced better quality pictures than the Canon Powershot A95 Camera I left at home (not a bad camera itself). I had purchased my Powershot Camera thinking that it might be useful when travelling abroad since it used readily available AA batteries. The weight, size, and photo quality of the Dimage Camera defintely outweighed (underweighed?) the battery advantages of the Canon. This camera takes as good as, if not better, pictures than my old 35mm SLR. This camera is no longer manufactured (although you still may be able to find it). Nevertheless there are numerous excellent compact digital cameras out there. Just don't expect to get decent photos with anything that is a digital camera combined with anything else. If you want a camera, get a camera. Get something light and small. Almost any digital camera these days takes excellent snapshots. THE LAPTOP Whether it's heavy or light, get something that's durable. I'm not sure what this might be (my Compaq is definitely not), but you want something that you can can toss into a TSA screening bin over and over again without fear. Durable is more important than lightweight in this case. A MacBook Air may be light, but I doubt you will find many "Genius Bars" in Dubrovnik. HOW TO CARRY ALL OF THIS STUFF WITH YOU On this trip I had planned a number of outdoor expeditions, I needed a backpack, and I looked for something that would work for outdoor adventures, and as serve an "urban" case for my "gadgets". Travelling light means making as much as possible serve double duty, and the North Face Recon II backpack did this very well. I purchased a padded neoprene sleave for my laptop, which fit perfectly in the "hydration sleave" of this backpack. Too often products that are designed to serve multiple purposes do neither well, but this backpack is an excellent hybrid. I regularly use it for hiking as well as my "laptop case". VIDEO Portable video was not a big consideration for me. Nevertheless, I left my DVR up and running at home and could have accessed this at any time I liked using a Slingbox (providing I had an internet connection) with either my laptop or my Pocket PC. A MOBILE PHONE I didn't have much need of a mobile phone overseas, so I borrowed one when necessary. You can also rent one, but if you can find a multi-band phone that can do all of the things that my Pocket PC does (MP3, AudioBooks, Ebooks, PDFs) I say "go for it". DOUBLE DUTY As I said, the trick to travelling light is making as much as possible serve "double duty", unfortunately some gadgets try to do everything, and do everything poorly. A camera should be a camera (a compact one will do very well), and a laptop should be a laptop (bring a durable one), but there are some things you can "double up" on quite successfully. If I could have, I would have left my laptop at home, taken my Pocket PC (which does a lot of things really well in a compact package), a camera and my headphones. After a 24 hour trip of taxis, planes, subways, and trains, and arriving at dusk at the hamlet of Windermere, UK, waiting for my brother-in-law at the bus stop outside of the local train station, I was approached by a confused woman asking if I knew when her bus might arrive. I looked around, but a schedule was nowhere to be found. Then I pulled my Pocket PC out of my pack and discovered that I had the bus schedule she was looking for, I had loaded it on my Pocket PC before my departure. I was nowhere near GSM or the Internet, and GPS would have been no use, but I had the information.